Facebook is the world's biggest social media network by far, but just how big? Here are all the key Facebook statistics you could ever wish for...

It all started back in October 2003 when a drunk student hacked into the security systems of one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

Mark Zuckerberg and his pet project have come a long way from those inauspicious early days, when Facebook was nothing more than a platform for students to rate the attractiveness (or otherwise) of their peers.

For the full story, including all the important numbers, read on…

Key Facebook statistics

The headline stats everyone wants to know, how many people use Facebook daily and how many are active monthly:

1.32 billion daily active users on average as of June 2017.2.01 billion monthly active users as of June 2017.$9.16 billion earned in advertising revenue in the second quarter of 2017, a 47 per cent increase over the same quarter 2016.Nearly 85 per cent of Facebook’s daily active users are outside of the U.S. and Canada.

Timeline

The Facebook story is one of constant change. Here are all the important milestones…

Feb 2004: Mark Zuckerberg launches The Facebook with co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin.Sep 2004: The famous Facebook ‘wall’ is introduced, giving people a public place to post messages for their friends.Sep 2005: The ‘The’ is dropped, leaving us with simply ‘Facebook’.Apr 2006: Facebook for mobile launches.Sep 2006: The News Feed as we know it is introduced.Apr 2008: Facebook Chat – the precursor to Messenger – is rolled out.Feb 2009: The famous Like button is introduced.Jul 2011: Video calling is launched.Apr 2012: Facebook acquires Instagram.Feb 2014: Not content to stop there, Whats App also joins the Facebook family.Mar 2015: The Messenger platform is launched.Feb 2016: Reactions are rolled out internationally.Oct 2016:Workplace by Facebook is launched.

User stats over time

Facebook has experienced staggering growth since its inception in 2004, and it has shown no sign of letting up in recent years.

Facebook facts

Facesmash: The earliest incarnation of the site was called Facesmash, which was launched on October 28 2003 by Mark Zuckerberg and Harvard classmates Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. That early site was designed as something of a ‘hot or not’ game comparing pictures of different undergrads based on their attractiveness.

Drunken blog post: The genesis of Zuckerberg’s idea was revealed in a fascinating blog post that doesn’t exactly flatter the now fifth richest man in the world:

‘I’m a little intoxicated, not gonna lie. So what if it’s not even 10 pm and it’s a Tuesday night? What? The Kirkland dormitory facebook is open on my desktop and some of these people have pretty horrendous facebook pics. I almost want to put some of these faces next to pictures of farm animals and have people vote on which is more attractive.’

Real friends: The average Facebook user has 155 friends but would turn to just four of them in a crisis.

Piratebook: Bizarrely, it’s possible to turn your Facebook page into an online version of the Jolly Roger. There’s an option in the settings to change your preferred language to ‘English (Pirate)’. Choose that option to see your timeline become ‘Captain’s Log’, Like become ‘Arrr!’ and Comment become ‘Scrawl yer thoughts’.

Top celebs: Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is the most liked celebrity on Facebook – with 122,079,386 fans. He edges out Colombian singer Shakira and actor Vin Diesel.

Where’s the poke?: The Facebook ‘poke’ became famous in the site’s early days. It was the online equivalent of giving someone a nudge, either because they hadn’t responded to a message or simply to say hello. The poke functionality is still available, though it isn’t quite as visible as it once was. Now you have to click on someone’s cover photo to find the Poke option.

Google searches over time

Despite launching in 2004, the world mostly remained blissfully ignorant of Facebook until around 2007 – when Google searches began to take off (see chart below). The steady rise continued until a hefty spike in October 2012, just before the period when Facebook really started to take off as a global powerhouse.

The crest of the wave continued until around August 2013, when Google searches began to tail off. The decline continued and as of September 2017, searches were comparable to their mid-2009 level.

Facebook, Inc.

Facebook might be an app on your phone, but it’s also a company with bricks and mortar buildings…